"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
Edmund Burke. What happened on this Day in History?

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

This Day in History: Jun 13, 1895: First auto race held from Paris-Bordeaux-Paris

On this day in 1895, Emile Levassor drives a Panhard et
Levassor car with a two-cylinder, 750-rpm, four-horsepower Daimler
Phoenix engine over the finish line in the world's first real automobile
race. Levassor completed the 732-mile course, from Paris to Bordeaux
and back, in just under 49 hours, at a then-impressive speed of about 15
miles per hour.

Levassor and his partner Rene Panhard
operated one of the largest machine shops in Paris in 1887, when a
Belgian engineer named Edouard Sarazin convinced Levassor to manufacture
a new high-speed engine for the German automaker Daimler, for which
Sarazin had obtained the French patent rights. When Sarazin died later
that year, the rights passed to his widow, Louise. In 1889, visitors to
the Paris exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution
were able to admire not only Gustave Eiffel's now-famous tower, but
also a Daimler-produced automobile with one of the new Panhard et
Levassor-constructed engines. The following year, Levassor married
Louise Sarazin.

By 1891, Levassor had built a drastically
different automobile, placing the engine vertically in front of the
chassis rather than underneath or behind the driver--a radical departure
from the carriage-influenced design of earlier vehicles--and put in a
mechanical transmission that the driver engaged with a clutch, allowing
him to travel at different speeds. In the years to come, this
arrangement, known as the Systeme Panhard, would become the model for
all automobiles.
In 1895, a committee of journalists and automotive pioneers, including
Levassor and Armand Peugeot, France's leading manufacturer of bicycles,
spearheaded the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race in order to capitalize on
public enthusiasm for the automobile. Out of 46 entries, Levassor
finished first but was later disqualified on a technicality; first place
went to a Peugeot that finished 11 hours behind him.

The
Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race highlighted France's superiority in automotive
technology at the time, and established Panhard et Levassor as a major
force in the fledgling industry. Its success spurred the creation of the
Automobile Club de France in order to foster the development of the
motor vehicle and regulate future motor sports events. Over the next
century, these events would grow into the Grand Prix motor racing
circuit, and eventually into its current incarnation: Formula One.